is
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
for
public law
Public law is the part of law that governs relations and affairs between legal persons and a government, between different institutions within a state, between different branches of governments, as well as relationships between persons that ...
. Public law regulated the relationships of the government to its citizens, including taxation, while (
private law
Private law is that part of a legal system that governs interactions between individual persons. It is distinguished from public law, which deals with relationships between both natural and artificial persons (i.e., organizations) and the st ...
), based upon property and contract, concerned relations between individuals.
[Nicholas, Barry (1962). ''An Introduction to Roman Law.'' New York: Oxford University Press, p. 2: "The Romans themselves made a distinction between public law and private law. The former was concerned with the functioning of the state, and included in particular constitutional law and criminal law; the latter was concerned with relations between individuals."] The public/private law dichotomy is a structural core of
Roman law
Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I.
Roman law also den ...
and all modern
Western legal systems. Public law will only include some areas of private law close to the end of the Roman state.
was used also to describe obligatory legal regulations, such as , which is now a term used in
public international law
International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...
meaning basic rules which cannot (or should not) be broken, or contracted out of. Regulations that can be changed are called today , and they are used when parties share something and are not in opposition.
See also
*
Roman law
Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I.
Roman law also den ...
Notes
Roman law
Latin legal terminology
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